Lake Capote and Pagosa Springs

Written on 9-23-23.

        I am sitting outside our Alto, and we are staying at Capote Campground with the Banashes.  Eric and Peter Long came to play at Pagosa Springs earlier this morning, and now we are all relaxing back at the campground.  Eric and Peter are headed back to Aztec,  Grant and Rachel are taking Kody and Roscoe for a walk, and Amanda went to go pay $5.00 for using the lake yesterday.  B just took a shower in the “pristine for the campground” showers, and she is hanging out in the camper.  I am amazed that it is near the end of September.  Soon, James and Casey will be married, and I will be wrapping up this journal after another year.  How many more years will I be able to do this?  Hopefully, many, many more.

On to golf…

While it is fresh in my mind, I want to get the round from this morning in here.  I played at Pinon Hills with C.J. and Patrick Smith recently, but I didn’t do too well.  I broke 100, but I didn’t get a score in the 80’s again.   Darn it!  On the front nine, I had some blow-up holes, and I managed a...

44 on the back.  C.J. told me before he left that he wanted me to score less than a 44 on the back (he said I had the game for it), but I got a double on the difficult #18, so I fell short of his goal.

I planned today’s round close to a month ago, and I was really looking forward to it.  Grant, Eric, and I played here before (last fall), and it was really fun.  We played the Pinon nine during that round, and I got a birdie on the downhill par four #14, or #5, depending on how you look at it.  That’s the one that goes right near the highway.  Well, I got two more birdies when we played today!  Here they are…

Pagosa Springs Golf Course-Hole #3 on Meadows-Birdie #4 of 2023

I didn’t do so well after this hole on this nine holes, but I played this one right.  We were playing the 1, 2, 3 points game again.  This birdie helped me get three points for the win, but that was it for the points.

My drive went to a bail-out position on the right side of the fairway.  I was just past what looked like an old bunker, but it’s all green now, so I think they are working on getting rid of it and making it grassy.  I was right at the end of it, and I had to lay up with my 9-iron to clear a small hill before I could make my approach.

Grant thought my ball was his, and he lamented that it was so close to that hill.  When he learned it was my ball, I gave him a hard time about it.  His drive had “Evil Knievel-ed” out of that situation by jumping the ramp that was the hill I was behind.  

        I made it to a spot on the fairway after that, and I had about 160 yards to the green.  A couple of ponds help guard the green if a player hits his approach short, so I clubbed up to my 6-iron to help make sure I made it past those.  I thought I would make it, too, but it stopped on the fringe, and that’s why I didn’t get any other points on this hole.  Grant and Peter dunked their balls in the water, and Eric struggled, too, but it didn’t matter.  I got a read from Grant, and I saw his ball race past the hole.  I put my line out to the right a bit, and I put less speed on mine, and that was the right combination.  It kept rolling and rolling until it fell in the hole, and I wasn’t done with birdies after that.